The other important character of the story is not a human, it’s the deep frozen lightless Siberian winter. He’s also not unexpectedly very resourceful and in a step too far he’s a bit like James Bond when it comes to seducing women.

Instead of Richard Hannay as the civilian thrown into the deep end, in Kolymsky Heights we have Johnny Porter, a native Canadian Indian who has a gift for learning indigenous languages. It’s a classic quest story and Kolymsky Heights has been compared to John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps, I personally think it’s closer to Greenmantle, the second of Buchan’s Richard Hannay novels than it is to The Thirty-Nine Steps. The synopsis itself is fairly simple, a single man must enter a heavily restricted part Russia, then enter an even more heavily restricted research facility, extract the required information and return safely to the west. If there is no contact with the outside world then how is it that he is able to tell his story, Kolymsky Heights is the much bigger story of how this feat was achieved. A position from which he is never allowed to leave or even have contact with the outside world. The scientist tells the story of how he came to be head of a secret research facility in a remote part of Northern Siberia. The novel begins with a Prologue which appears to be a letter written by an unnamed Russian scientist to an old acquaintance. After reading Kolymsky Heights the first time I didn’t disagree I know that’s a cliché but it’s how it was described to me when I was first given it to read in 2008, the person who gave it me probably had the same conversation with the person who gave it to them and so forth. Lionel Davidson’s Kolymsky Heightsis one those books which I, although I hestitate to say it, would put in the ‘best you’ve never heard of’ category. Welcome to the second in my series of favourite books which I’ll be reviewing over the summer.

Kolymsky heights by lionel davidson